Bangladesh

People pay tribute at the Shahid Minar, a memorial for martyrs of the national language movement, on International Mother Language Day in Dhaka, Bangladesh. On the same day in 1952, several University of Dhaka students were killed when police opened fire on a protest demanding their mother-language Bangla be made a state language.

A woman cries after losing all of her belongings in a fire at a slum at Mirpur in Dhaka, Bangladesh. According to local media, at least 200 shanties and 20 shops were destroyed in the fire on Tuesday, which was caused by an electric short circuit.

Buses are packed into an inter-district bus terminal during a blockade organised by Bangladesh Nationalist party activists and its Islamist allies in Dhaka. Bangladesh opposition supporters went on the rampage, blocking roads and ripping up railway tracks after rejecting plans for a January 5 election, plunging the nation into fresh political turmoil.

Commuters take to their bikes in Dhaka during a nationwide strike called by the opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), which left thousands of buses, minibuses and trucks idled. Led by the BNP, an 18-Party alliance is encouraging an 84-hour strike to support their demand for a non-party neutral caretaker to conduct upcoming parliamentary polls and to protest about the arrest of its senior leaders.

Men carry animal fat that will be turned into glue, in the Hazaribagh neighbourhood of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Hazaribagh has been listed in a report by Green Cross Switzerland and Blacksmith Institute as the fifth most polluted place on earth. It houses 95 per cent of Bangladesh’s leather tanneries, which every day dump 22,000 cubic litres of toxic waste, including the cancer-causing hexavalent chromium, into the capital city’s main river and key water supply, the Buriganga.

A prisoner looks out of a courthouse window in Dhaka, Bangladesh, before the verdict for a 2009 mutiny by the Bangladeshi Rifles is announced. A special court on Tuesday sentenced to death 152 people, from among hundreds of mutineers accused of murder and arson.

Bangladesh Nasir Hossain, foreground on top, and teammate Sohag Gazi stretch during a practice session ahead of their one-day international (ODI) cricket match against New Zealand in Dhaka, in Bangladesh.

People watch the rescue operation from outside the factory after a devastating fire at the dyeing section of two-storey Aswad Composite Mills at Maona, Gazipur, Bangladesh. At least nine people were killed when a fire broke out at an apparel factory on the outskirts of Dhaka, the capital of Bangladesh.

A Bangladesh homeless woman sleeps at a bus shelter in Dhaka under a billboard advertising toiletries. The latest Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) Progress Report, released by the UNDP, indicates that less than a third of people in Bangladesh now live below the national poverty line.

Women hold photos of their missing relatives at the site of the Rana Plaza factory building, which collapsed in April crushing more than 1,100 people, in Savar near Dhaka, Bangladesh - the worst tragedy in the history of the global garment industry

Family members and activists look at pictures of factory workers of the Rana Plaza, in Bangladesh, three months after the building collapsed, killing more than 200. Hundreds of garment workers and activists staged demonstrations at the site, demanding compensation for the survivors and a full account of the missing.

A Bangladeshi labourer spreads out recycled plastic shards to dry by a river in Dhaka. According to studies conducted in recent years, the Dhaka City Corporation collects in excess of 50,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually. The average collection rate is around 137 tonnes a day. The plastic recycling industry of the Bangladesh capital is playing a important role in saving the city from being submerged in a sea of plastic.

Garment worker Rikta, 27, who worked on the third floor of Rana Plaza, poses for a portrait at Enam Medical College, in Savar, near Dhaka, Bangladesh. Rikta had her right arm amputated inside the rubble when she was rescued nearly 72 hours after the building collapsed.